Thursday, May 28, 2015

THE MASTER PASSION ~ Chapter One, West Indies BoyhoodThis Founding Father was not born to the purple, like the others.

Sharing a sick feeling, Alex and Jamie Hamilton stood on
barefoot tiptoe and peeked through flimsy wooden louvers, all that separated
the rooms of their small West Indian house. Both boys were red-heads, but there
the resemblance ended. Eleven year old James was well-grown and strong. Alexander,
seven in January, was delicate, fast-moving and nervous, like a freckled bird.

“An idiot would have known not to trust him.” The beautiful
dark eyes of their mother flashed. Rachel faced her husband, a slight man of
aristocratic feature, who wore a white linen suit. Like him, it had seen better
days. His wife’s tone was challenging, her arms akimbo. Her stays, containing a
generous bosom, rose and fell.

“I—I—took him for a
gentleman.” Father sputtered, attempting to fall back upon a long ago mislaid
dignity. “He gave me his word.”

“His word!? Which means bloody nothing! How many times did I
tell you what was going to happen? How many times?”

“Shut your mouth, woman!”

A sharp crack sounded as he slapped her. Rachel, hair
spilling from beneath her cap, staggered backwards. From the kitchen came the
fearful keening of Esther, their mother’s oldest slave.

“There’s naughtcanna be dune noo!" James Hamilton, his long
face flushed, roared the words. Scots surfaced whenever he was angry.

“Yes, nothing to be done. As usual.” A livid mark glowed
upon Rachel’s face, but she, with absolute disregard for consequences, righted
herself and finished what she had to say.

“This time Lytton’s going to let you go. And if you can’t
even manage to hold a job with my kinfolk, where will you get another? What are
we supposed to live on? Air?”

In spite of the fact that it was winter on the island, the
best weather of the entire year, Alexander shuddered. Distilled fear slid along
his spine.

How many times in his short life had he watched this scene
replayed? Listened to Mama shout Papa’s failures, watched as his father,
humiliated and enraged, used his fists to silence her?

A business deal gone bad! Money lost….

Will we move again?

Every change of residence, from Alexander’s birthplace on
cloudy Nevis, to St. Kitts, and from there to St. Croix, had carried them to
smaller houses and meaner streets. The carriage, the two bay horses and the
slaves who tended them, were only a memory.

Mama was shrieking now, about loans and due dates, things
which she declared “any fool” could understand. Frozen, knowing what would
surely come, Alexander watched as his father, crossing the room in two quick
strides, caught his mother by the shoulders.

With the strength of rage, he threw her like a rag doll. She
struck the wall so violently the flimsy house shook. Small emerald lizards
stalking the mosquitoes drawn by candlelight, vanished into shadow.

Silenced at last, Rachel crumpled to the floor, sobbing. Her
once gay calico dress, muted by many, many launderings, lapped her. The under shift,
always scrubbed to a sea-foam white, drifted from beneath.

James Hamilton, breathing hard, blind with rage, tore open
the door and strode past his cowering, terrified sons. For the last time, Alexander
saw his beloved father’s face, a sweating mask of fear.

* * *

“Come on, boys. Out of there.”

A candle shone in the balmy West Indies night. The voice wasn’t
unkind, just drunk and hurried. From outside came the bell-chorus of an untold
host of peepers.

Alex and Jamie, in shirts too ragged to wear during the day,
had been asleep in the only bed. There was a mattress filled with palm fronds
in the next room upon the floor, but this time of year scorpions came in. When
Mama hadn’t returned, they’d decided to sleep in the greater safety of her bed.

Jamie groaned, sat up and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. The
Captain of the Guards, Mr. Egan, leaned over. He breathed rum and seemed
unsteady. Behind him, supporting herself on the door frame, was Mama. She was,
Alexander noted with a thrill of disgust, bare-shouldered, her cap removed, her
shining dark hair loosened.

“Out, boys,” she echoed. “Esther said she’d beat your
mattress and lay it out after supper. What are you doing in here?”

Neither boy replied. She didn’t want an answer. What she
wanted was for them to leave. Tomorrow she’d give them a scolding, but not
tonight. At the moment there were other, more important things on her mind.

“Here, young fellow.” Egan, muscles rippling beneath his
shirt, handed Jamie the candle. Obediently, Jamie took it. Their rooms were,
after all, rented space in the front of his house.

“Use this to look if you’re worried something’s in your bed.
Your Ma and I won’t be needing it.”

He threw a grin at Rachel, who was restlessly tossing a dark
curl over a pale shoulder. Mrs. Lavien or Mrs. Hamilton—whichever name she used
now that she was living alone with her sons on St. Croix—was almost thirty, but
she still turned heads whenever she passed along Christiansted’s bustling main
street. Anticipation caused the captain to deliver a slap on the rear to speed
the smaller boy along.

Alexander was wide awake now, his eyes blazing blue fire. The
distant echo of surf, the sighing palms, the intoxicating fragrance of Lady of
the Night that climbed in profusion over the house, held no power to still his
pounding heart.

Grinning, Egan stepped back, threw an arm that was
infuriatingly proprietary around his mother.

“Yes. Don’t start,” Rachel cautioned. “Just mind your own
business and go back to sleep.” Her dark eyes turned toward Egan. One hand
moved easily across his chest, taking in the feel of hard flesh beneath. Alexander
wanted to kill them both.

“If you and Jamie slept where you were supposed to, this
wouldn’t happen.”

“Come on, woman.” Egan terminated the conversation, pulling
her playfully through the door into the darkness.

“The little brats.” Their mother was heard to sigh when the
door closed. “I swear they do it on purpose.”

In the next room, the boys busied themselves in a thorough
inspection of their mattress. Satisfied at last about the absence of scorpions,
they extinguished the candle and lay down together. From over the transom came
whispered laughter and the sound of the captain’s boots dropping to the floor.

In the soft darkness, beside his now stolidly motionless
brother, Alexander crammed fingers tightly into his ears. Tears pooled against
his cheek.

I am in the grandma zone, a long time writer and poet, posting at Crone Henge and BWL these days just because. Wish I could travel, and last year I was lucky enough to get back to the UK, specifically to Avebury to reconnect with the ancient temple. Hiking, camping, lover of solitude, cats, moons and gardens.

Friday, May 22, 2015

And to follow RED MAGIC and BLACK MAGIC is WHITE MAGIC, which is still in progress.The MAGIC COLOURS series will highlight a different sort of "magic" in each story. In WHITE MAGIC, we'll hear from young teen Charlize von Hagen, who is taken from Austria to England when her mother, Mina, who is Goran's twin, marries an English gentleman.

Red Magic

"My name is Charlize von Hagen. I live in England now.
Sometimes I miss Austria where I went between two big houses. The first house
was really Grandma’s, down in the green valley of the River Inn. The other, my
favorite, was on the high mountain manor of Heldenberg.

We left because my mother got married. Lord Thomas is a
nice man, an English gentleman, and because Mama wasn’t married before he came
along, she was happier afterward because she was almost respectable again. You see, all her friends
had turned against her when she had a baby - me - before she had a ring.

I was happy too, when she married Lord Thomas. At first,
mostly because she was happy with him and then because I learned he understood
me. He still does, although he sometimes also says I’m ‘wayward’ and that most
people would have me beaten with a strap every day in hope it would make me act
like a lady and not a “like a two-legged mastiff puppy.” He doesn’t spank anymore,
although he did sometimes when I was younger. He hit especially hard the time I
was playing with Mama’s spaniels and we ran into the maid so that she dropped and
broke a very fine tea set. Mama says he doesn’t beat me because I act better now and because I am older and because he is a kind
person. Besides, he thinks I can’t help myself because I am a little bit
mad.

Truly!

This is not rude of him. I am a little mad, because I see things
and hear things that other people do not. I get scared sometimes about what I
see and what I hear, those things that others can’t.What’s scariest of all is when I try to escape
from all of that and then realize I can’t, because the things I’m most scared
of are “in my head” and part of me. That’s what Thomas, who is a doctor,
understood about me. He said that it sometimes happened to him, too, after he’d
spent years and years in the dreadful wars and 'seen too many terrible things'.

He and my Mama, too, appreciate what I feel, but I don’t make
them happy when I panic. My fear scares them as much as it scares me.

English people just say it’s all “Germany” where we are from, but that’s
only the language. We are not Germans, anyway, my mother says, but Austrians, and so that
makes us more refined. Wehave an Emperor. All the Germans have is a lot of little bitty countries like Saxony,
Westfalia, Bavaria, Brandenburg, Hesse,
Wurttemberg, Schleswig-Holstein, and also some cities that are ruled by
archbishops. The land of the German-speakers is a patchwork.

My mother is very beautiful, a twin, and born into an old
and noble Austrian family....

My baby nurse, Trudchen, remained at Heldenberg with my Aunt
Birgit, who is like a sister to me because we were only born a week apart. At first I really missed her terribly and cried whenever I thought about her. My Mama had taken care of both of us after my
grandmother was killed in the great avalanche, the one which came during the year with no summer.
Uncle Goran, Mama’s twin, still lives on the mountain. He stays there all the time now,
although he too was once a handsome, brave soldier, in the wars with Napoleon for years and years, just like
Lord Thomas.

But Uncle Goran haschanged.

Black Magic

It’s not his fault, but now he’s Krampus sometimes and a stag sometimes.
Mama says he can be any kind of animal he wants, or bits and pieces of several,
all stuck together. Thomas says that’s what the ancient Greeks called a
chimera. But Uncle Goran’s other selves are a blacksecret.

I’m really not supposed to talk about any of it.
Sometimes, though, if I want to sound crazy to someone I don’t like, I talk about it
anyway...

I am in the grandma zone, a long time writer and poet, posting at Crone Henge and BWL these days just because. Wish I could travel, and last year I was lucky enough to get back to the UK, specifically to Avebury to reconnect with the ancient temple. Hiking, camping, lover of solitude, cats, moons and gardens.

Friday, May 15, 2015

To follow last week's excerpt from RED MAGIC, here's something from the sequel, BLACK MAGIC, a shape-shifter adventure, in the MAGIC COLOURS series. Goran, a newborn at the end of RED MAGIC, is now a man grown, confronting a dangerous adversary, an sinister, predatory neighbor.

Goran rode
to the Raptor’s Nest like a mad man. Bem struggled to keep up. About a half
mile from the place, in the hollow below the rise from which he and Thomas had
surveyed the house just two weeks past, he drew up.

“My Lord?”
Bem, when he arrived, shouted over the blowing of his horse and the restless
stamping of Turk.

“I want you
to take Turk and then ride like a wind out of hell back to Heldenberg House.”

“What?”

“Yes. You
don’t need to be here. It’s going to be dangerous—more than you know.”

“I’m your man,
sir! I belong at your side.”

“If I can’t
deal with this by myself—you won’t be able to do much besides accompany me to
death’s door. I want you safe and at the house, because someone will have to
account for all this to my sister and to Lord Thomas. If I don’t
return—everyone must clear out of there at once.”

“I won’t be
able to account for anything if I’m not present.”

Scowling, Goran
swung down. He handed Turk’s reins up to Bem.

“Damn you! Do
as I say! If the Count’s as powerful as I fear, he already knows we’re here.”“I swore to your sister I’d stick
with you.”

“Bem! Obey me!”

Bem could
only stare, for as he spoke, Goran’s long proud face started to flow. Horns
white as bone, emerged from his high forehead. As the change began, both horses
snorted, reared, and then plunged away from the fearsome chimera now taking
shape.

***

Bem was
gone, clinging to his horse’s mane for dear life, now gone out of sight over
the ridge. Turk had high-tailed away it even faster. Goran had stood and watched
them go, sending feathers of terror to chase after them. He wanted to be
certain that all were well away from The Raptor’s Nest before he entered.

No reason for any more deaths, except,
perhaps, for mine, which is, the last ten years considered--probably overdue.

For some
reason, the thought calmed him. He could feel the horns retracting, his jaw and
teeth returning to normal size. He had swollen inside his clothes and burst a
button here and there, but after a few minutes, he was simply a man again, a
gentleman in an old riding coat.

It was as
Goran von Hagen that he would enter the Count’s home.

The Count
probably realized that his new neighbor was more than he seemed, but there was
no need to show it immediately. The Count liked games, liked to play with his victims
before he killed!

I am in the grandma zone, a long time writer and poet, posting at Crone Henge and BWL these days just because. Wish I could travel, and last year I was lucky enough to get back to the UK, specifically to Avebury to reconnect with the ancient temple. Hiking, camping, lover of solitude, cats, moons and gardens.

Friday, May 8, 2015

Christoph's estate had the same name as the looming
mountain upon whose shoulders it sat:Heldenberg.The surroundings were
wild and the nearest town, the tiny village of Heldenruhe, was about seven
miles away.

As the
time of Cat's departure grew closer, Lady van Velsen seemed increasingly
apprehensive.She fussed and fussed over
her daughter, insisting that she spend her days overlooking housekeeping in
every detail, from kitchen to the linen closet.

"A
quick course?" Christoph teased when he discovered them at it.He leaned across the gleaming table and
lifted a fat, ripe strawberry from the basket in the center. After biting
into it, he sent a nod of approval towards his mother‑in‑law.

"Herr
Graf," said Lady von Velsen, drawing herself up very straight, "I
have always done my best to instruct Caterina in the duties she would be
expected to perform as a gentleman's wife.I have tried persuasion and I have tried whippings.Both, as you probably realize, to no
avail."

She
looked so distressed that Cat felt she should say something.

"It's
not Mama's fault, Graf von Hagen.It's
just as she says."

For the
first time she could see her mother's point of view.In a few days she would be mistress of a
large household and she knew next to nothing about how to manage it.

"Housekeeping
just wasn't as interesting to me as horses and‑‑"

A
ferocious look from her mother interrupted.

"No
apologies, please, from either of you ladies," von Hagen said with a
smile."Especially from Lady
Albertine who has been trying to plant on stony ground.Let me assure you that I have a capable staff
in residence.They shall, I'm sure,
continue to manage as they have in the past.When my wife becomes interested, as I'm sure she will after a time, she
can assert her own notions about housekeeping."

He
finished the small fruit and dropped the pit upon a plate which had been set
next to the basket.It was awful to Cat
to see her proud and capable mother standing there, apparently so embarrassed
on account of her.

"Until
she has some, though," Christoph said with a sudden grin, catching one of
Caterina's long red braids and tugging, "she can climb trees and play with
Star all day and nevertheless an adequate dinner will find it's way onto the
table."

"Oh,
Caterina," her Mama said after Christoph, a fresh greengage in hand, had
taken his leave."How on earth are
you ever going to manage?"

No
servants from home would come along.Christoph had insisted upon that, had been quite adamant that his own
people could adequately attend them.

This
had upset Lady von Velsen.She'd wanted to
send oneof the older servants along to
advise Caterina.Of course, though none
of them would have dared argue with their mistress, not one of them wanted to
be exiled to Heldenberg either, especially with Caterina!When the word about Graf von Hagen's decision
went out, there was much rejoicing (albeit muted) in the servant's quarters.

The afternoon before Cat was to leave, a
summons came from her mother.When she
arrived at Lady von Velsen's room, she found it darkened.Her mother was afflicted occasionally by
migraine and the silent, dim room attested to just such an attack.

As the girl curtsied and retreated, Cat stepped
into her place."May I help,
Mama?"

"Yes, please.Do as Hanna was doing while I talk to
you.It's a very serious talk too,
Caterina, so please attend."

There was a pause, a tinkle of water as Cat
wrung out the cloth and applied it to her mother's white brow.Finally her mother said, "There are a
few last cautions I want to give you,my
angel, especially about your husband the Graf's housekeeping
arrangements."

"Yes, Mama."Cat
was demure, thinking it was going to be another lecture about lazy servants or
counting the hams.

"Caterina, as I believe you are aware, Christoph kept a
mistress at Heldenberg for many years."

"Yes, I know," Caterina shifted uncomfortably."Wili told me."

"This spring when your husband returned to marry, he told
your father and I that this lady had married another man, a captain in his
regiment, and that she had gone to live in Vienna with her husband and their
new baby.But now, from something Uncle
Rupert said to your father, I am not so sure that this is the case."

~

(Which cover do you like better?)

"Gottesblut, Mama!What?"Cat dropped the cloth
into the basin and stared at her mother with dismay."Surely you and Papa don't expect me to
live under the same roof with a‑‑a‑‑concubine!" ...

I am in the grandma zone, a long time writer and poet, posting at Crone Henge and BWL these days just because. Wish I could travel, and last year I was lucky enough to get back to the UK, specifically to Avebury to reconnect with the ancient temple. Hiking, camping, lover of solitude, cats, moons and gardens.

Friday, May 1, 2015

...The
forest was a living cathedral, the great columns bearing a roof of green. All
the time we gradually ascended, following a path. In one place we forded a
lively stream, balancing on mossy rocks that barely kept us above the
chattering water.

Topping a final rise, we came at last upon the Waldhut. It sat in a small clearing,
dwarfed by the biggest pine trees I had ever seen. Smoke trailed from the
chimney and a fire also crackled out front, snapping sparks. From the greasy
cloud rising from a blackened, steaming rock pile, I knew that a pig had
already gone into the pit. There was another smell, too, the welcome fragrance
of coffee.

Among the musicians and dancers were handymen and servants,
all sharing in the cheerful equality of the day. As Barbara and I laid blankets
at the edge of the clearing atop a thick blanket of pine needles, I spied,
further back in the woods, a green tent. Stage shrieks emanated from it.

"Gott! The
usual bawdy house atmosphere." Barbara took me by the arm and pulled me
toward the fire. "You, Blumechen,
are to stay far, far away from that tent."

The clearing had the look of an impromptu marketplace, with
stacks of rugs and laden baskets. Three children suddenly bounded out the door
of the summerhouse, pushing past like unruly dogs. Two boys and a girl, they
wore bright lumpy peasant’s clothing.

Who did they remind me
of, with their broad laughing faces and thick wild hair?

"Schikaneder's." Barbara answered my unspoken
question. "Three different mothers, but look at them, alike as peas in a
pod. He keeps a regular herd at some farm near Josephplatz."

Turks, I
thought, weren't the only men to keep
harems.

Going into the Waldhut
with Barbara, we found a trestle table set with breads, butter, cheese and
those expensive luxuries, coffee and sugar. With cups in hand we stood around
the table with the Schacks, who were already inside eating. At last, in spite
of the strong, sugary coffee and so many gay companions, I was sleepier than
ever. Barbara and I, after looking at each other and yawning, agreed we
couldn't keep our eyes open much longer.

Going into the yard, we collected our things and carried
them to an area screened from the clearing by flowering trees. Here, close to
the prone form of an ancient pine, we spread our blankets. Ferns and clusters
of tiny white and lavender flowers dotted the ground. Barbara fussed at me to
hurry and settle, but I spent time carefully finding a spot where the blanket
wouldn't crush them.

"Shall I sing my little girl a lullaby?" Barbara
leaned back against the fallen tree and kicked off her shoes.

"Yes if you please, Frau Gerl."

Behind us, the clearing grew quiet. There seemed to be a
unanimous decision that it was time for a nap. While Barbara softly serenaded
me with an old nursery song, I bunched up my shawl for a pillow. A root that
felt like a big toe stuck into my side, so I moved my hips. The last conscious
thought I had was that I'd never be able to fall asleep here...

~~~

I stood with a group of women among the
pines. I could hear a bright tune, perfect for a romp, but my companions were
still as statues. In their midst was a man, an angel of a man, a man I almost
recognized.

Golden curls haloed his face and he wore a
crown of laurel leaves, like Apollo. When he beckoned, one of my companions
would rise and walk like a sleepwalker into his arms, where she would be
embraced and kissed. Melting, the woman would crumple to the ground at his feet
and remain there, eyes raised toward his shining face, apparently quite
stricken with love..."

I am in the grandma zone, a long time writer and poet, posting at Crone Henge and BWL these days just because. Wish I could travel, and last year I was lucky enough to get back to the UK, specifically to Avebury to reconnect with the ancient temple. Hiking, camping, lover of solitude, cats, moons and gardens.

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I am in the grandma zone, a long time writer and poet, posting at Crone Henge and BWL these days just because. Wish I could travel, and last year I was lucky enough to get back to the UK, specifically to Avebury to reconnect with the ancient temple. Hiking, camping, lover of solitude, cats, moons and gardens.